I believed it for a second, then we had a good laugh when I realized it was April 1.

“You know,” Cossey said, “I’m going to play a big April’s Fool’s Day joke and start telling everyone that they actually did find Cooper’s chute.”

That’s exactly what Cossey did.

Cossey has been flooded with calls since last Tuesday, when the FBI said they were investigating a parachute dug up near Amboy that could be the Navy-issue parachute Cooper used.

“I took so much grief from the press, I thought it was time for a little fun,” Cossey told McNerthney late Tuesday afternoon.

When talking to a reporter from The Columbian, Cossey told him the FBI appeared at his doorstep with a harness and parachute and they all agreed it was the chute used in the world’s only unsolved hijacking.

The April Fool’s Day-news was also apparently relayed to a reporter at The Oregonian, who also called the FBI believing the story.

About 1 p.m., a story briefly appeared on The Columbian’s Web site titled “Parachute rigger now says it could have been DB Cooper’s chute.”

The article was linked by Google News, believed to be a story that would spark international appeal.

When the reporters talked to the FBI, spokeswoman Robbie Burroughs confirmed that while they did visit Cossey last week, they didn’t return to his house with a harness and he never told them he thought they had Cooper’s parachute.

The story was quickly taken down off The Columbian’s Web site, and Cossey got a few angry calls.

“One guy called me back and said ‘Do you know a guy could get fired over this?’”

In an e-mail sent about 4 p.m. Tuesday announcing that there was no connection between the found chute and Cooper, Burroughs specified “This is not an April Fool’s Day joke.”

“Some guys don’t like me now,” Cossey said. “But I think we all needed to have a little fun.”